


Impatience is a Virtue

by FetFemme



Series: The Three Misfits [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Cute, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Insecurity, M/M, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Romance, going to be a bit of a dark series though, upcoming smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FetFemme/pseuds/FetFemme
Summary: John Hancock, "sexy king of the zombies", junkie mayor of Goodneighbor, and ghoul ne'er-do-well, becomes a mild nuisance and bothers everyone in town while he eagerly awaits the arrival of his partner.





	Impatience is a Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fluffy introduction (mostly to set the foundation for their relationship) to a series that is going to get kind of dark. I'm going to insert random bits of fluff to keep it from being emotionally draining. I'm planning a eight part series, mostly one-shots but at least one multi-chapter, each rich with smut, introspection, some angst, and a bit of fluff!

Had he not just taken a rather large hit of Jet, his only hit of the day, Hancock would’ve been bouncing foot to foot impatiently. He didn’t even go on his morning binger because he knew his lover would disapprove once arriving to find his eyes joyfully glazed over in a haze of jet and mentats, so his mind was extra jittery despite the fact that his body was not fidgeting. He sat with Fahrenheit in the morning to work over some mayoral duties, which didn’t take long because aside from his concerns about the Pickman Gallery and the usual non-disruptive shady activities going on behind closed doors, Goodneighbor was fairly at peace. However, that didn’t stop his right-hand woman from scoffing at him and making a snide comment about his lover holding a very short leash around his neck once she noticed that his trademark jacket did _not_ in fact have a tin of mentats in the breast pocket. It didn’t hold the mild animosity that it would’ve with anyone else though, she was very quietly happy for him, as long as he remained her (mostly) drugged out, efficient boss.

He tried milling about the streets, miscellaneously chatting with the numerous amount of drifters and citizens passing by him. He considered going to The Third Rail to flirt a bit with Magnolia, but that woman was _not_ a morning person, and the last thing he needed was a drink at nine in the morning. He passed through the doors of Hotel Rexford, chatting merrily with his grumpy, frumpy Clair behind the counter, she mostly grunted back at him as she looked over her books for the day. Rufus was nursing a warm beer on the couch, where Hancock promptly sat and asked if the man had found anyone to hunt down his beer bot yet. He shook his head no, not breaking away from his beer long enough to speak, then Hancock promised that if he found anyone interested that he’d send them his way.

 “Got any potential repair jobs that need approving?” The mayor asked curiously, squirming to adjust the knot of his rolled up flag belt from digging into his flat stomach. Rufus just stared at him silently until he adjusted the knot to the side of his hip and stopped fidgeting. Rufus then replied in his beautiful calm voice that Goodneighbor was in tip-top shape and had no requests for repairs, returning to his beer silently and sinking further into the couch until Hancock got the hint that the man was done talking.

He stood up and stretched with a groan, smoothing the creases in his ratty red coat, and crossed the room to bother Fred. Fred smiled warmly and opened his baggie of chems, happily showcasing his newest addition of ultra jet and bufftats. While the chem dealer never had too much to say that was interesting, Hancock listened to his new entrepreneurial endeavor to find a toxic gas to create _brand new_ chem, reassuring him that he’d be eager to try whatever concoction the dealer cooked up in the hotel basement as he walked towards the exit.

He aimlessly waltzed into Kill or Be Killed to talk to KL-E-0 about her latest shipment. She was always very enthusiastic to entertain his weaponry fetish- well, as enthusiastic as the assaultron merchant can be- and, with relish, described each one of the deadliest guns she expected to arrive by caravan by the end of the week.

As she was organizing the shelves precisely to her liking, he leaned on the counter, letting his arms pillow his chest. She wasn’t quick in her movements, taking care to make sure each box of ammo had the label facing out, arranging her armor by the body part it covers, lining all of her guns in alphabetical order beneath the counter, and letting her few other supplies rest in boxed stacks on the lowest shelf.  

“I saw your terminal the other day, girly.” Hancock mentioned casually, eying her while taking out his knife to clean the dirt from the remaining fingernails he had.

KL-E-0 paused in her movements, straightening her body slowly, either with nervousness or merely waiting for his reaction to her writings. “And?” She asked in her droning voice.

“Ever consider being one of those stealth types? Or maybe a strategist? You’d be makin’ more than you do running this dusty shop.”

“I enjoy my shop, Mister Mayor,” she said, amused despite her lack of tonal changes, “And I’m not one for stealth, as you’ve read.”

“You seem to enjoy those kinds of things though, bein’ ready for anything that comes at ya.”

“I like contingency plans. A girl like me must have them.”

“You got a plan for killin’ everyone in this humble town if we turn on ya, even me. I ain’t even mad, KL-E-0, I’m too impressed.” He laughed, “Pretty genius though, poisoning my chems, suffocating my girl in her sleep so she doesn’t come after you with her big ass gun. I respect it.”

She nodded, continuing to arrange her stock as she was before.

“You must be sweet on Magnolia,” he pressed, “Ya went pretty easy on her in your plans, the only one you intend to let escape at first. While I don’t love the idea of you burnin’ down the bar to scare the girl and get her to run, but it ain’t as brutal as the rest of us.”

“I did type that I planned on shooting her in the head very neatly if she did not run. And burning down the Third Rail is justifiable, as is any collateral damage, as long as my shop remains standing. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet, baby,” She said, laughter implied in the minute inflection of her voice, “Don’t worry, I’ve only test the weapons on customers I don’t like.”

“You didn’t say you weren’t sweet on her.” He pointed out. She tilted her head, not responding immediately, before straightening and resuming her activities.

“Working girls must look after each other. And Hancock?”

“Yeah?”

 “Each weapon is tested on someone who deserves it. So for future reference-”

 “Yeah?”

 "It’s rude to invade a woman’s privacy. “

 It killed maybe a good forty or so minutes, which was satisfying enough for him, but he still took a very small second hit of Jet to relax.

 Next, he sat his skinny behind on Daisy’s smaller counter, annoying the older woman by constantly asking the time.

 “What’s the time now?”

 “For the last goddamn time John, it’s eleven-fucking-fifteen.” She growled, throwing a mutfruit at his head, which he left bounce off of his forehead and smoothly caught it to take a bite from the earthy fruit.

 “Daisy, darling, honey,” He drawled around a mouthful of fruit before swallowing and chasing the bite with a shallow inhale from his little red canister, “Time travels _so_ much slower on Jet.”

 “Then stop huffing shit.” She snapped. “Take some med-x and go back to sleep before your little bed-warmer gets here. I really don’t think he’d mind finding you in bed when he arrives.”

 “It’s too late for that, he should be here any minute.” He insisted, reaching over with his free hand to caress her face, “Then I’ll be outta your pretty little hair. And he ain’t a bed-warmer, that’s just a bonus.”

She smacked his hand away from her cheek, wiping the small line of mutfruit juice left behind, but she looked at him with more exasperation than anger. She bent under her counter and roughly yanked out a bottle of whiskey and slammed it beside his seat on the counter, “If you don’t drink this with me and relax, I’m moving to The Slog.”

He sighed with dramatic heaviness, finishing his fruit and taking one of the glass cups off of her counter before setting it down for her to pour some into it, “You’d never move, where ya gonna find the foot traffic, empty store space and a face this cute to look at everyday?”

“You got me there,” she sighed, cracking the seal and pouring a few fingers of whiskey in her glass, bringing it to her thinned lips to down in one go, and pouring herself another to slowly sip at before serving him. “Then I’ll tell Mags that you’re sneaking into her room and sniffing her dirty panties while she’s performing.”

Hancock choked on his drink with a barking laugh and grimaced. While it wasn’t true, Magnolia would still either laugh it off or beat his face into the ground and refuse to perform again, which result in him begging her pathetically to come back or his bar losing the most talented and sexiest attraction in the commonwealth.

“Fine, be that way.” He pouted, finishing the rest of his drink and holding his glass out politely for another.

Daisy rolled her eyes and smiled fondly, “I think I found my favorite piece of fake blackmail, John” she teased, pouring another big helping of whiskey before replacing the cap back on the bottle. Now that she’d convinced him to stop acting like a child, she was more than happy to talk with him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you old dame.”

She smiled widely, just leaning back to sip at her drink some more and tilting sideways to look past his shoulders. He was too distracted to notice who was strolling over towards them with his patchy trench coat fluttering behind him with his pace, more than likely hiding eagerly bright yellow eyes under his equally worn fedora.

“What are you look-” He spun around, almost falling off the counter and knocking his face into his lover’s broad chest. He let his glass land on the counter hard before throwing his hands around the man’s waist and pulling him tightly into the space between his legs. Nick settled a hand on the ghoul’s thigh and adjusted the tricorn hat from falling off of his head.

“Nicky!” He grinned, “How ya doin’?”

“Just fine,” Nick smiled, eyes not quite matching his fairly professional stance “Maybe a little worse for wear as usual. You annoying Daisy again?”

“Please take him away like the princess he is,” She said before drinking her whiskey in one swallow again, setting her glass on the counter and replacing the bottle beneath her counter again.

“Who am I to tell you no, Daisy?” He laughed softly. He reached for John’s arm and pulled the ghoul onto his feet, securing his non-metal hand tightly around his waist and leading him in a stroll out of the store front.

“Bye, Dais!” Hancock laughed, having no problem being led away.

She noticed that despite his flirty, almost childish front, he looked _happy_ when Nick Valentine came around. It was a shame he didn’t just pack up and move his agency into the statehouse so she could witness it more.

Once they reach the nearby doors of the State House, Nick released the ghoul to open the door for him, gesturing with his metallic hand for him to enter first. Hancock winked and commented on what a gentleman he was as he passed through the threshold into his abode. Nick rolled his eyes and followed close behind, effortlessly keeping after his excited pace up the winding staircase. The neighborhood watch didn’t even blink at Hancock’s cheery glow and the source of the glow who trailed after him, used to seeing their leader atypically happy with the other man.

Hancock walked down the hall quickly, passing his office completely and reached for the door of his bedroom, gesturing with a big flourish for Nick to precede him as the synth had done earlier. Nick just rolled with it, walking through the doorway only to be stopped by a wrinkled, rad-burned hand. Hancock looked at him intensely, dragging his hand up and down the synthetic chest and leaning in to place his thin lips high on the man’s cheek.

“You forgot to tell me about what a gentleman I am,” He whispered huskily into what was the flesh and metal of his ear, pressing a long kiss beneath his earlobe. Nick rolled his eyes, but also basked in the loving attention he was receiving. The synth decided to pull the man through the doorway behind him, shutting the door quietly and locking it.

“Since where are we true gentlemen, John?”

He silenced the ghoul’s upcoming retort with a firm kiss. It was hard to really imagine how a kiss between the two could be so tender, with thin barely-there lips pressed into stiff lips of synthetic skin, but somehow they managed to pour their love into it. They didn’t outright speak their feeling very often: Nick constantly struggled with his existential feelings of whether or not he was even built to love or if it was just a shadow of what the old Nick would’ve felt in the times before war, and Hancock was emotionally haunted between his past mistakes and his newer venture into ghoulifcation. So they rarely said it out loud, but they knew.

Nick flicked his tongue over the younger man’s lower lip before plunging in and ravishing the insides of his mouth. As the ghoul moaned lowly, he used the distraction to grasp his slender hips lead the man backwards until he stumbled onto the bed, breaking their kiss.

“Nicky,” He smirked, “If ya wanted me on the bed that badly, all ya had to do was say somethin’.”

Nick settled onto the bed, lightly straddling the lithe figure beneath him, and leaned into his lips once more but shushed him before kissing him once more. Nick generally was reluctant to be touched, something that Hancock had taken great care in trying to help him through, so the synth predominantly engaged in giving his lover the more _intimate_ touches.

Nick pushed the ghoul's trademark coat open so he can venture beneath his billowy shirt to press his thumbs into the ticklish parts of his hipbones, pressing his hands up his chest to jostle the old fastenings of his shirt open. Hancock decided to pull Nick to the bed so they were laying side by side.

He took his tricorn hat off and slowly tossed it off of the bed before doing the same to Nick’s fedora. Nick shied his face away into the bedding, mumbling about how his hat hid most of the hole in his face.

“Ya say that every time, Nicky,” Hancock smiled boyishly, “Ain’t gonna stop me from doin’ it.” He let his hands wander up the shoulders of the synth’s patched up trenchcoat and pushed it off of his body. Hancock leaned in to pepper lingering kisses along his neck, deliberately not avoiding the somewhat jagged edges of the metal and frayed wires running from his cheek to his collar. Nick was content to let it happen only interrupting to run his non-metallic hand beneath his lover’s shirt and gently, letting his fingers play idly in the small divots of his leathery skin.

Hancock lifted his chest off of the man to look down at his, the boyish smile lingering on his lips, “How long are you staying?”

Nick smiled back, gripping him tighter to force Hancock’s face closer to his so he could lightly nuzzle his nose around the space where the ghoul’s nose used to be. “I’m all out of cases ‘cept one, but I’ve got to let my lead cool for a couple of days. And I gave Ellie the rest of the week off, I’m all yours.”


End file.
